Myself on Waiheke Island, New Zealand.
Oh my holy crap! I've officially started my blogging expedition on the intrawebz. Well, that's not entirely true, I did have a pretty successful blog running at Myspace for awhile. But since that site crashes my browser every time I log on now, I gave it up. I may well try to port some of the content over to this site as time allows. If I do, I'll dub these with the category tag: "Myspace Imports."
Alright, well that was all very explanatory. So, for my first post, I figured I would post a few details about myself so that anyone who wants to get to know me can start here (or we could, you know, hang out). So let's get started:
Alright, well that was all very explanatory. So, for my first post, I figured I would post a few details about myself so that anyone who wants to get to know me can start here (or we could, you know, hang out). So let's get started:
Background:
Let's start in the very beginning. That's a very good place to start. About 13.someoddnumber billion years ago there was a whole lot of nothing. Then, according to some of the brightest minds to exist in the universe since then, that nothingness exploded. That, apparently, was the very beginning of our universe and, thus, our reality as we know it. Now we need to fastforward that 13.someoddnumber billion years until about 24 years ago. Around that time, the space shuttle Challenger exploded on the morning of January 28th, 1986. Simultaneously, (no really, right down to the minute), I clawed my way out of my mother in a little town called Sonora. For those of you unfamiliar with Sonora, it's a delightful little redneck town in the foothills of the California Sierra Nevadas (just near Yosemite actually).
Well, I spent my entire childhood and teenagedom in Sonora, going to school there and learning the ways of my forefathers, which makes sense since some of my great grandparents were a few of the first settlers in the Sonora/Columbia area. I spent my childhood doing what any homegrown country boy did, coming up with bad ideas and executing them in epic manners. I've been to the ER more times than I can recall, most often due to various head injuries and cuts and scrapes and what not from those very same bad ideas. After learning of the many dangers that this world has to offer (first hand I might add) in Sonora, I moved to San Luis Obispo at the age of 18 to start my career as an adult (it's a work in progress).
My college years took place at California Polytechnic State University of San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly, SLO, to be exact). I earned a Bachelor's of Science in Aerospace Engineering (that's rocket science to you laymen!) and fell in love with learning in general. By the time I graduated, I had developed an extreme respect for the wealth of knowledge available to me as a human being. I became interested in fields as diverse as ancient human history, pagan religions, philosophy, control systems engineering, theoretical physics, everything involving computers, and girls (well, I had always been interested in girls, but since they were on the list...well, you get the idea). So once I earned my degree, I vowed to keep learning on my own. As such, I am an avid reader, and one of my greatest hobbies involves seeking out unknown or unexplored things. These things can involve everything from abstract ideas to foreign cultures and uninvented gizmos. In fact, I often have a hard time keeping myself stuck on any one discipline because I hop from one project or passion to the next without any regard to topical consistency. While this keeps me from becoming an armchair expert in anything, it certainly makes for a dynamic lifestyle which I enjoy.
Life As I Know It:
These days I reside in Oceano with one of my oldest friends (whom I will try to keep from naming in respect of his privacy) just south of SLO. I work in Santa Maria (uuuuugh) as an, "Associate Trajectory Analysis Engineer." That's also a fancy way of saying rocket scientist. Essentially, I study the trajectories that various satellite launches are supposed to follow and I verify that the numbers and equations used to work out the trajectories are valid.
So those are the semantics. Now for some of the personal stuff. I have many pass-times which you will probably learn a lot more about by reading my future blog entries and my other pages on this site. I ride motorcycles because, quite honestly, it's the funnest thing I've tried yet (we'll see how it stands up once I start taking flying lessons). I tinker on various projects and robots in my garage as a hobby. I watch a few different science fiction shows occasionally. I play far too much Halo. I love to skimboard. I enjoy swimming in general (there are not enough rivers around SLO). Above all else, I like to get out and explore. My roomate and I try to get together as often as possible to go places we have never been before. Whether that involves an obnoxious romp around another country (something I did in New Zealand not too long back), or simply seeing an epic looking rock and saying, "Hey, let's go climb that!" it always makes for good times.
In fact, when it comes down to it, I like trying just about anything for entertainment purposes. I have my hobbies and habits, but I have to keep things uncertain as often as possible to keep myself sharp and aware. So learning something new, or trying something unheard of, is never out of the question.
Aside from all that, I do have some milder hobbies. I like to play with words (as you may have noticed). I, therefore, tend to scribble down tidbits of poetry from time to time. I also write stories, or books, as a hobby. In fact, I have written one entire novel. I haven't published it yet, of course, but it is sitting as one large 270+ page pdf on my hard drive as I type this. I also like to play with computers and networks. I program a bit. I even sew a few things from time to time (hey! patching my favorite jeans counts as sewing!). I do play the drums and sing and dance (when nobody is looking). I also enjoy music thoroughly. I am a rocker through and through. My dad brought me up on the various bands from the late 70's and early 80's. I grew into the third-wave punk scene at a later age. I fell in love with ska. Ever since the decline of that glorious time for music in the 90's (damn you emo!), I have spent my time seeking other bands and sounds that rouse my passions and have stumbled upon everything form Chopin to MC Lars.
So that's about it for now. I hope that gives you a bit of a taste about who I am and what I am about. As this website grows with time (which I promise it will), I will include everything in this blog from motorcycle repair jobs to random spits of thought and rhetoric. I hope you all found it enjoyable enough to read again in the future.
Best of Luck,
Brady C. Jackson
Let's start in the very beginning. That's a very good place to start. About 13.someoddnumber billion years ago there was a whole lot of nothing. Then, according to some of the brightest minds to exist in the universe since then, that nothingness exploded. That, apparently, was the very beginning of our universe and, thus, our reality as we know it. Now we need to fastforward that 13.someoddnumber billion years until about 24 years ago. Around that time, the space shuttle Challenger exploded on the morning of January 28th, 1986. Simultaneously, (no really, right down to the minute), I clawed my way out of my mother in a little town called Sonora. For those of you unfamiliar with Sonora, it's a delightful little redneck town in the foothills of the California Sierra Nevadas (just near Yosemite actually).
Well, I spent my entire childhood and teenagedom in Sonora, going to school there and learning the ways of my forefathers, which makes sense since some of my great grandparents were a few of the first settlers in the Sonora/Columbia area. I spent my childhood doing what any homegrown country boy did, coming up with bad ideas and executing them in epic manners. I've been to the ER more times than I can recall, most often due to various head injuries and cuts and scrapes and what not from those very same bad ideas. After learning of the many dangers that this world has to offer (first hand I might add) in Sonora, I moved to San Luis Obispo at the age of 18 to start my career as an adult (it's a work in progress).
My college years took place at California Polytechnic State University of San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly, SLO, to be exact). I earned a Bachelor's of Science in Aerospace Engineering (that's rocket science to you laymen!) and fell in love with learning in general. By the time I graduated, I had developed an extreme respect for the wealth of knowledge available to me as a human being. I became interested in fields as diverse as ancient human history, pagan religions, philosophy, control systems engineering, theoretical physics, everything involving computers, and girls (well, I had always been interested in girls, but since they were on the list...well, you get the idea). So once I earned my degree, I vowed to keep learning on my own. As such, I am an avid reader, and one of my greatest hobbies involves seeking out unknown or unexplored things. These things can involve everything from abstract ideas to foreign cultures and uninvented gizmos. In fact, I often have a hard time keeping myself stuck on any one discipline because I hop from one project or passion to the next without any regard to topical consistency. While this keeps me from becoming an armchair expert in anything, it certainly makes for a dynamic lifestyle which I enjoy.
Life As I Know It:
These days I reside in Oceano with one of my oldest friends (whom I will try to keep from naming in respect of his privacy) just south of SLO. I work in Santa Maria (uuuuugh) as an, "Associate Trajectory Analysis Engineer." That's also a fancy way of saying rocket scientist. Essentially, I study the trajectories that various satellite launches are supposed to follow and I verify that the numbers and equations used to work out the trajectories are valid.
So those are the semantics. Now for some of the personal stuff. I have many pass-times which you will probably learn a lot more about by reading my future blog entries and my other pages on this site. I ride motorcycles because, quite honestly, it's the funnest thing I've tried yet (we'll see how it stands up once I start taking flying lessons). I tinker on various projects and robots in my garage as a hobby. I watch a few different science fiction shows occasionally. I play far too much Halo. I love to skimboard. I enjoy swimming in general (there are not enough rivers around SLO). Above all else, I like to get out and explore. My roomate and I try to get together as often as possible to go places we have never been before. Whether that involves an obnoxious romp around another country (something I did in New Zealand not too long back), or simply seeing an epic looking rock and saying, "Hey, let's go climb that!" it always makes for good times.
In fact, when it comes down to it, I like trying just about anything for entertainment purposes. I have my hobbies and habits, but I have to keep things uncertain as often as possible to keep myself sharp and aware. So learning something new, or trying something unheard of, is never out of the question.
Aside from all that, I do have some milder hobbies. I like to play with words (as you may have noticed). I, therefore, tend to scribble down tidbits of poetry from time to time. I also write stories, or books, as a hobby. In fact, I have written one entire novel. I haven't published it yet, of course, but it is sitting as one large 270+ page pdf on my hard drive as I type this. I also like to play with computers and networks. I program a bit. I even sew a few things from time to time (hey! patching my favorite jeans counts as sewing!). I do play the drums and sing and dance (when nobody is looking). I also enjoy music thoroughly. I am a rocker through and through. My dad brought me up on the various bands from the late 70's and early 80's. I grew into the third-wave punk scene at a later age. I fell in love with ska. Ever since the decline of that glorious time for music in the 90's (damn you emo!), I have spent my time seeking other bands and sounds that rouse my passions and have stumbled upon everything form Chopin to MC Lars.
So that's about it for now. I hope that gives you a bit of a taste about who I am and what I am about. As this website grows with time (which I promise it will), I will include everything in this blog from motorcycle repair jobs to random spits of thought and rhetoric. I hope you all found it enjoyable enough to read again in the future.
Best of Luck,
Brady C. Jackson